March 8, 2008

• You Knew I Was a Snake ...

  Has everyone heard the story of the boy and the snake? 

  A snake crawled high on the mountain, not noticing the falling temperature until suddenly his blood cooled too much and he was almost frozen.  On the verge of death, he sees a boy also climbing the mountain and pleads with the boy to carry him down to the warmer rocks of the valley.  The boy feels pity, but resists the plea because this snake is a venomous one.  The snake promises, begging for his life that he won't bite the boy if he will just carry him down to safety.  The boy gives in, carries the snake to safety and as the snake becomes warm in the boy's shirt he focuses on the beat of the heart beneath that warm skin.  Before the snake has time to consider, his fangs come out and sink deep into the boy's chest, filling that heart with deadly venom.  As the boy lays dying the snake crawls away saying, "you knew when you picked me up ..."

  Co-dependency has been the theme of the week around here.  I've had conversations with friends, relatives and people I don't even know all describing situations in which they so want to help but realize that they have instead enabled their loved ones to continue in destructive behavior. 

  One friend told me of how her attempts to love her husband have not resulted in the reciprocal relationship she desires.  Instead, the more she gives, the more he takes while she spends her days lonely and her nights wishing for more.  One friend described a situation with an adult child who has given her grandchildren, but fails to parent those children well, and in fact neglects and emotionally abuses the kids.  So my friend often "babysits" in order to give the kids a place of stability and security even though she knows that she is enabling her child to continue in immature and abusive behavior.  A third friend is in a situation with an adult child that is probably going to cost my friend close to $20,000 not counting legal fees before its all over, and the child is very likely to serve time in jail for bad decisions made.  Another friend was forced to file bankruptcy this week over a car loan she co-signed.  The other party defaulted on the loan and the car was repossessed without her having been informed of the problem.  Now her credit is trashed and she's being sued for the balance of the loan, which she can't afford to pay.

  I used to hear more stories of co-dependence with a partner who couldn't shake bad habits.  Now, as much because of my age and that of my friends as anything I hear more and more stories of parents who know they are enabling negative behavior in their adult children but can't seem to break the cycle.  Especially because they seem so helpless in the face of choices they can't understand.  After all they never made THESE mistakes.  They don't understand how their kids can be making these choices now, or why the kids don't seem to care about the damage they are creating in the lives of the people around them. 

  Finally, you come to the place voiced by one of the people described above, "I don't care anymore 'what he was thinking' there's nothing I can do about his thinking anyway." 

  Dr. Phil describes a situation in this month's Oprah magazine of a woman who was unfaithful to her husband.  She repented of the infidelity and realized that she truly loves her husband.  So she came back and has dedicated herself to restoring the marriage, but the husband can't get over it. Although he says that he loves her, he doesn't trust her and has begun to behave toward her in ways that can fairly be described as abusive.  As with all tragic human relationships the bottom line there is that either the woman can sign up for a life-sentence of guilt, recrimination and abuse as her just due for having betrayed her husband's trust, or she can move on.  There is no middle ground.  Changing his behavior is not an option for her to choose (although he can choose it, she can't choose change for him).  And in fact, the more often she allows him to behave in an abusive manner, the more likely he is to repeat that behavior.

  You know, I'm aware that "birds of a feather flock together".  So when I sense a trend in the lives of my friends I take a look at myself because my friends aren't just randomly chosen or conscripted into friendship without some commonality attracting me to them. 

  We love our partners.  We love our kids.  And we want so desperately for them to love us back, to respect us, to be good people, make good decisions, we want them to reach out and hold us.  But none of us can compel these qualities in another.  The more we try to "provoke them to good works" the more they seem to take our solicitation as license to behave in the same old way and then some. 

  I may yet have these issues with my boys.  They are certainly not immune from bad decisions and I love them so much that its easy for me to be blind to a problem until it's reached a point of crisis.  One thing that I'm trying to live by is a rule I adopted when they were much younger, "Never routinely do something for another person that he is capable of doing for himself."  Of course I will cook meals, do laundry, and a hundred other things that my boys are capable of, but I also pull them into the rotation of chores so they aren't learning that I will automatically and routinely handle things for them. 

  Its been especially difficult with Michael because of the challenges presented by his autism to know when to let him take his lumps and when to step in and ask for leniency.  The kid tries, and most of the time is recognized by his teachers as one who tries very hard.  But sometimes they miss something that means his best effort doesn't look like much, and then he needs help from his advocate (me) in negotiating his way through the world.  As he's getting older I'm also teaching him to advocate for himself, and that's a whole new level of tricky. 

  Another rule that I've adopted for myself after hearing Dawn's description of it is: Don't offer them solutions for their problems.  Acknowledge their frustration, but give it back to them, "How do YOU intend to solve that?  What's YOUR plan for fixing this?  What will YOU do next?"  Even if you can see so clearly what they could do to fix it, let them decide how to proceed.  That's important for two reasons, first it gets you out of that enabling behavior and second, it comminucates to the person that you believe in them and trust them to be able to handle it. 

  My kids don't look like snakes.  I'm pretty sure they aren't venomous.  It's not apparent to me that their nature is to harm.  My friends' kids didn't look like snakes when they were 11 and 13 either.  But the road that has led to a place where my friends seem to have no choice in the matter, they either enable or allow the grandkids to suffer, enable or allow the child to go to jail, enable or allow the child to face financial consequences, enable or allow ...

  And it's a false choice.  We aren't allowing anything.  They are going to do what they are going to do.  I'm not a big Dr. Phil fan because he strikes me as arrogant and uncaring much of the time but he's not all wrong.  He says "when you choose the behavior, you choose the consequence."  The hardest part of parenting may be that we have to get out of the way of the consequences our children have chosen, and we have to be wise enough to limit our own risk in the process. 

  If you know that your kid has a drug problem, don't co-sign a loan for them.  If you can't afford to pay for the car, don't co-sign the note.  (I am more and more opposed to being a co-signer on anything for any reason.  I'd loan or give money before I'd co-sign and risk my own financial position.)  Certainly don't agree to be a joint account holder.  And if you ARE a joint account holder or co-signer, move as quickly as possible to get out of that legal entanglement.  (Note to all who haven't thought about this, if you have a joint account with someone you are legally responsible for any bad debt that person creates with that account whether you wrote the bad check or not.)

  Love your kids.  Love your spouse.  Love your friend.  But be smart.  Don't expose yourself to losses you can't afford.  Don't buy into the myth that it will be better later. 

   

  • 1:14 pm
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